Terms of Service

INTRODUCTION:

These Terms of Service (TOS) cover the services provided by Send2Press® Newswire, a service of Neotrope®. Additionally, for those customers choosing our “premium” plans, certain terms apply to services provided by PR Newswire® (PRN) included with those plan levels.

PLACING AN ORDER FOR OUR SERVICES AND SUBMITTING A PROJECT IS CONSIDERED ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS OF SERVICE (TOS), WHICH IS A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT. YOU ALSO WILL BE REQUIRED TO ACCEPT THESE TOS DURING CHECKOUT/PAYMENT, AND WHEN SUBMITTING A PROJECT TO SEND2PRESS.

2016 Terms of Service (TOS)

Specifically these Terms of Service (TOS) limit our liability related to the accuracy of your transmitted news content. Additional terms relate to news placement, and the use of credit cards for non-refundable purchase of our services. Customers may request a copy of these terms in writing, by email. TOS last revised Sept. 12, 2015.

SUMMARY:

• Services are ordered securely online and are non-refundable.
• Content must meet our basic format requirements and Acceptable Content Policy (ACP).
• You are solely responsible for accuracy and legality of provided material and hold Neotrope/Send2Press harmless from all liability.
• Use of client credit card or international card not passing AVS will require additional verification.
• Your credit card statement(s) will show a charge from NEOTROPE, and not from Send2Press.

I) News Content and Accuracy

You are responsible for the content and accuracy of all news copy and information submitted to Neotrope/Send2Press. Because of the volume of copy and information submitted to Neotrope/Send2Press, Neotrope/Send2Press cannot be responsible for verifying any facts contained therein. You represent and warrant to Neotrope/Send2Press that (i) You have the right to deliver to Neotrope/Send2Press all copy and information submitted to it and (ii) no copy or information submitted by You will contain any content that is obscene, libelous, slanderous or otherwise defamatory, false or misleading or which violates any copyright, right of privacy or publicity or other right of any person. You shall indemnify and hold harmless Neotrope/Send2Press and its affiliated companies from and against any and all claims, losses, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys fees) arising out of or relating to any breach by You of the foregoing representations and warranties or otherwise arising out of or relating to the contents or nature of the information and/or copy provided by You.

Neotrope/Send2Press reserves the right to reject or edit copy when necessary in its judgment (such as for AP style, U.S. English language, etc.). All news copy, photographs, video and audio files processed shall be the property of Neotrope/Send2Press. Neotrope/Send2Press endeavors to disseminate promptly and accurately all news, which it processes (this does not invalidate or over-ride any intellectual property rights; only provides for publication and dissemination of provided material in perpetuity for the purpose of normal PR practices).

Any inadvertent errors by Neotrope/Send2Press will be corrected promptly upon discovery, without additional charge, and such obligation to correct shall constitute the sole liability of Neotrope/Send2Press in this regard. Neotrope/Send2Press is not warranting or insuring that Neotrope/Send2Press’ services will be free from errors, omissions, interruptions, delay, losses or defects, whether human or mechanical. Neotrope/Send2Press makes no warranties, expressed or implied, as to its services, including but not limited to any warranties or merchantability or suitability for print or broadcast. In no event will Neotrope/Send2Press be LIABLE to You and/or Your Client(s), including for any indirect, consequential, special, exemplary or incidental damages. By its submission of copy and other information to Neotrope/Send2Press, You agree to be bound by the foregoing Terms and Conditions of Service.

II) Payment and Delivery of Services

All press release services are offered to You and/or Your Client(s) subject to Neotrope/Send2Press’ Terms of Service (TOS). Placing an order through this system and submission of content through our News Form system is considered a legal “contract” to engage Neotrope/Send2Press to provide services to You, in lieu of a physically signed agreement. Neotrope/Send2Press guarantees that it will provide the services ordered, but there is no guarantee to You as to the effectiveness of any service due to the value of the news being announced, editorial focus of receiving media channel, and/or local, regional, or world events, or any other reason. There will be no refunds for Neotrope/Send2Press services ordered by You or Your Authorized Agent(s) for any reason, and orders cannot be canceled once placed (*see refunds section, below, for certain situations). Neotrope/Send2Press makes no claim of suitability of service for any purpose, nor offers any performance warranty to You.

Neotrope/Send2Press Services are not offered to You “on approval” and will not qualify for any adjustments with your credit card company based on your perceived satisfaction or dissatisfaction with any aspect of Neotrope/Send2Press’ service. By providing your credit card information you are authorizing Neotrope/Send2Press to charge your card for the dollar value of the services you are requesting, and by placing your order you are stating that you understand the preceding and are agreeing to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, you may not order services from Neotrope/Send2Press.

Neotrope has been in business more than 30 years with one of the highest levels of customer satisfaction, follow through, credibility and performance in the PR industry for our clients. We bring this capability to every project, however You and/or Your Client(s) are ultimately responsible for the “value” or “newsworthiness” of the content you submit to us. We are a vehicle, but we have no control over how media will respond to your content.

Your credit card will show a charge from NEOTROPE, and not from Send2Press. An order receipt is sent to you automatically once the order is approved and that is your invoice/receipt for your purchase. You may also print an invoice by logging into your account, clicking Your Account, then from order history click order number then print the page (and/or download PDF). No other invoice can be provided nor can we edit information after the fact for an invoice that differs from the information you entered during checkout/payment. If you use the optional PayPal payment method, you may also print a receipt from your PayPal account for your records. For any other optional payment method (Amazon Payments, etc.) you will have option to print/save payments from your Amazon account, as applicable.

Payments made by PayPal or other alternate payment gateway/provider (Amazon Payments, e-check, etc.) will be subject to the same “no refunds” policy.

REFUND POLICY FOR UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES:
Although all sales are non-refundable, we do understand that from time to time, for whatever reason, there will be instances where there is no other option than refunding a purchase made in our system on purchases made same day. ALL refunds – for any reason – requested and made after the order has batch-processed at day’s end will incur a 5-percent (5%) fee to cover costs associated with merchant, bank, and AVS fees and book-keeping on our side to reconcile your breach of this agreement. Accidental duplicate orders which can be voided prior to batch processing will not incur such a fee.

Other refunds are done at our sole discretion, and will generally be from 10-50% of the service fee(s), depending on how much time/work was spent with client prior to cancellation – we are under no obligation to provide refund, which will also be less any handling fees from payment processors. A minimum 10% fee will be deducted from any refund when time has been spent on consultation, drafts, approvals, advice, image or text review, multiple email or phone queries, etc.

FAILED ORDER INFO:
From time to time you may place an order attempt and enter partially incorrect billing address info (e.g., billing street address, and/or zip code), wrong security code (e.g., security code for American Express is on front, not back as with Visa/MC), etc. Each time you place an “attempted order” your card passes through both an “authorization” phase with your CC company, and an AVS (address verification service) phase. Both must pass for the order to complete and for it to process with the end of day batch. An authorization is not a charge, it’s only an authorization for the card to be processed — when you call your card company the inexperienced phone support person may see them as charges, but they are only authorizations and will never be charged unless they show up in your store account as “processing” or “completed” (a completed purchase). However, if the card does not pass AVS (due to mis-entered, or out of date billing info), the order will not be charged, even though an authorization has been done. We cannot assist you with clearing any authorization hold from multiple order attempts — they will clear up based on your card provider’s policy which may be 2 days to 2 weeks. Again, no charge will be done except on a fully approved order, and we have no access to your card data as a PCI-DSS certified secure merchant.

Please see the following articles on Wikipedia which explain how both CC authorization holds work, and what AVS is (it’s not part of our system, it’s run by the banking networks):

III) MISC.

Agency/Volume Discounts (“Multi-Packs”):
For Agency/Volume Discount clients (“Multi-Packs”), the agency/purchaser acknowledges understanding that these prepaid services are non-refundable and can only be used for services ordered. Agency Discount plans do not expire, but are non-transferable nor can they be converted to other service types for dollar value credit. All plans may be “upgraded” to higher service plans (e.g., State Plan to National LITE Plan). Customer and Partner coupons, non-profit discounts, and affiliate commissions do not apply to Agency/Volume Packs.

Use of Company/Partner Credit Cards:Important! Because of credit card rules for “card not present” transactions, if you place an order and use another person’s credit card (such as company card, spouse’s card, etc.), you ARE REQUIRED to have the card holder fax us a signed authorization form authorizing the charge (or scan/save as PDF/jpeg, etc.). This is for both the protection of us and the card holder from fraud. The form can be found in our Order Center, on the How to Order help info, or on request. This is required only once per card / card holder per calendar year and projects can not be completed until verification provided.

Agencies please understand that using client card will make the end client “our client” legally as they are paying us for work done, not you as the agency. Agencies or solo PR practitioners who use client card are responsible for payment if card holder does not honor charges on card and/or any/all collection fees as applicable. Generally agencies should use their own card and then charge client directly. We will require the email address of card holder to send a direct copy of order receipts.

International Orders (Outside U.S./Canada):
We accept orders from international businesses, provided that 1) we can verify an active English-version Website, and 2) if the card is not supported by AVS, the card holder MUST FAX A SIGNED AUTHORIZATION for the charge with photocopy of front/back of credit card. No exceptions. This is required only once per card / card holder per calendar year.

Send2Press Newsline:
All releases distributed by Send2Press include a Newsline identifying Send2Press as the originating newswire service in the dateline. News distributed via other services such as PRN, or similar may show their newsline in addition to or in place of Send2Press (example, a story appearing on PublishersNewswire.com will indicate /Publishers Newswire/ as part of the dateline).

Persistence of News Content:
Send2Press news content shall, in most cases, remain online in perpetuity and the “article” version(s) created by our editorial staff may vary from your actual press release subject to our content and editorial policies on certain websites. The “article” version of your news story becomes the exclusive editorial property of Send2Press in the exact way that a newspaper may create a story based on your news and cannot be removed on request except in issues related to slander/libel or other similar legal matter. All materials posted online are permanently archived or “cached” by numerous data systems (Lexis Nexis, Newsbank, ProQuest, Contify, etc.) and can never be fully removed from the Internet. Most sites that run verbatim copies of your news release content through networks found in our “Premium” (formerly “Extended”) level plans may expire at any time. Conversely there is no guarantee content will be online in perpetuity. Neotrope/Send2Press has no control over how news is used on other websites which will vary from aggregators, news clone sites, blogs, newspaper and magazines, radio and TV based sites, RSS, and clipping services.

Note that you should not choose to make your media contact info publicly visible unless you expect this information to be visible online forever.

Content Removal:
Generally it is nearly impossible to “retract” a release after it has gone out. Some sites may post media contact information, and we have no control over this. Any major correction or retraction should be issued the same day, not a week or month later. News issued is intended for dissemination, propagation and use – this is the purpose of a press release – it is NOT a short term advertisement or promotion that can be removed or updated at any interval or point in time. You should not issue a release unless you expect the information to become a permanent living document. We do remove any content found to contain notable factual errors, libel/slander, intellectual property violations, or fraud. While we can, in some rare instances, remove the content from our main website, this will not impact any other site or information archive. You will always be required to manage any content removal for any reason as necessary for legal or other issue, and Neotrope/Send2Press cannot assist you with removal of content on any other website or system.

Use of Send2Press Multimedia Content:
Send2Press provides certain content such as images, logos, and other material on a hosted basis to coincide with the release of your news story. These elements, such as photos linked to within a press release, may not be linked to, loaded, streamed, or otherwise used in a news release issued through another PR/news provider. You may not load elements dynamically from our system on blogs, websites, or in dynamic content. This includes images, logos, audio, and video content. All of these elements are offered for EXCLUSIVE use while distributing news through the Send2Press News Network and not elsewhere on the Internet. Use of our content in any spam or bulk email campaign is prohibited. Use of our content shortcodes for spam/UCE is prohibited and if discovered will be disabled.

Accuracy of Transmitted Text:
While Send2Press and associated wire services will do their best to correct your mistakes such as spelling, grammar, and typographic errors whenever possible, there is no guarantee that all errors existing in provided copy will be fixed, nor are we under any obligation to do so. You should provide a proper, correct news release if you wish it to be error free when transmitted to the media and online. If you make a serious error, a “correction” can be issued without cost the same day as transmitted (during our normal business hours) with our “Premium” (formerly “Extended”) level plans (a re-transmission fee would be charged if issued at a later date); while with our “Standard” level plans, only a correction to our article and archival copies on Send2Press.com are possible (re-transmission to media will incur cost of new release). All datelines will be conformed to A.P. style (e.g., Los Angeles, Calif. and not Los Angeles, CA).

BY SUBMITTING THIS ORDER / FORM YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE FOREGOING TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SERVICE (TOS). IF YOU DON’T AGREE, YOU MAY NOT ORDER SERVICES FROM NEOTROPE/SEND2PRESS. SUBMISSION OF YOUR ORDER / FORM WILL BE CONSIDERED A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT UNDER THE LAWS OF THE U.S. AND THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

Privacy Statement:

We adhere to all U.S. and California laws regarding privacy, and we never sell, rent, trade, or otherwise disclose client personal data beyond the information presented with each project for the media. Fraudulent orders and non-paying clients’ information may be shared with relevant authorities, and/or collection agency(s) as necessary, although uncommon.

FRAUDULENT ORDERS WILL NEGATE ALL OF OUR PRIVACY POLICIES AND ALL INFORMATION PROVIDED TO US IN ANY FORM INCLUDING EMAILS, PHONE, DOCUMENTS, AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS MAY BE SHARED WITH RELEVANT LEGAL AUTHORITIES AS NEEDED.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS:

All services are pre-paid and ordered online, and are offered subject to our Terms of Service (TOS) and Acceptable Content Policy (ACP). Placement of news on any website is subject to that site’s editorial policies, and social media outlets noted in features subject to change. Some news systems and/or aggregators may suffer service outages outside our control. Some systems, including Google News, may skip “stale or duplicate” news content or certain advertorial material. Neither Send2Press nor PRN can “guarantee” placement on any specific news system or social media outlet listed in the Send2Press feature descriptions. Please see our Help/Getting Started for news content we will not accept. All transmitted news content will be conformed to AP Style where necessary without prior preview or approval and to meet our format requirements (see our Help/Getting Started for information; you may request AP format review at no cost for submitted projects).
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